Naples Florida Real Estate: "I'm Not Closing" & Other Agent Heart Stoppers.

Spend a few minutes in the real estate industry and your bound to hear something you think might cause your heart to stop.  Especially today!

• I'm not closing...
• Fix everything or I'm walking...
• I'm taking your client's earnest money and putting the property back on the market...

But if you spend a few more minutes in the industry, you learn that sometimes those statements are true and sometimes they're not but more importantly...the chips will land where they will. 

So how do you balance the pressure of a real estate induced heart attack and still be effective? 

1.  Get to the heart of the problem.  When a client called three days before closing and said, "I'm not closing...the lender lied to me".  I said, "ok...tell me what happened".  He gave a brief synopsis, I called the lender, had a five minute conversation and the matter got resolved....he closed three days later and he still owns a fabulous condo in Pelican Bay because of it.  Had this been my first big deal...who knows...I could still be lying on the floor gasping for air...or worse...maybe I'd be dead. 

In so many cases these what seem to be big outbursts and serious threats are a mere emotional byproduct of something that sometimes is really not that big of a deal and are easy to resolve as long as you're still conscious.

2.  Don't get emotional.  Remember, we're supposed to be the people that keep the transaction at arms length.  Sometimes that can be hard to do if one party is being difficult or seemingly "off" in character.   Regardless of the circumstance agents who can keep their balance when the transaction appears to be crumbling can be the very foundation to keep the deal together. It's important to keep it together so you can perform the duties that best assist your client. Sometimes this means you need to think things through before offering a response.  In many cases it might mean making sure you're not fueling a fire that could go out of control.  Stability will help and if you're not forcing air into the fire...there's a chance it might put itself out.

3.  Stay the course.  Now this is a tricky one because the course is ultimately determined by your client...not you. If the objective is to close the deal...cool.  Sometimes the objective changes (as most of us know)....and without going into a bunch of legal advice which is not what we're allowed by law to do, a simple rule I always keep in mind is the fact that the client is the boss.  After determining for sure what your client wants to do, it's up to us to perform despite how we may feel ourselves. 

One thing is for sure.  We can't ultimately control what goes onand trying to will lead to a great deal of undesirable results.  It is not our job to control people or contracts.  Our job is to perform duties and when we take ourselves out of the equation and look at our client's best interest the rest becomes....well...a little easier on our health.